


a rose, by any other name

by ocdranboo



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Abusive Relationship, Eating Disorder, Gen, Mentions of Suicide, Trans Female Character, Working through feelings, i wrote this for therapy:3, trans!jj
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-24 15:33:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21620251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ocdranboo/pseuds/ocdranboo
Summary: trans!JJ
Kudos: 34





	a rose, by any other name

Jennifer was going by TJ at home, JJ at school, and Jennifer with several close friends and her sister, Roslyn, when she was still alive. She’d been going by Jennifer in her head since she was 11, and had adopted the nickname JJ to go by at school when she was 13.

She knew her parents wouldn’t be okay with it. When Roslyn had come out as bisexual, their parents had said that she was not to “act on these impulses,” and then informed Jennifer that she was not allowed to date boys.

At 15, Jennifer began getting bad grades in her science class. Her grade dropped from a 92 to a 76: nearly failing in her state. Her well-meaning teacher Mr. Wolfhagen phoned home, asking if they could “please speak to JJ about his grades.” When her mom said they “didn’t have a JJ, only a TJ,” Mr. Wolfhagen was quick on the uptake, saying that he’d “just spoken to JJ’s mother” and that he was “sorry for messing up.” 

He brought her outside the next day, making her heart race with fear and her throat clam up, and he told her what had happened.

“Would you like to be called a different set of pronouns at school?”

JJ shook her head, feeling her pulse in her throat. “No, it’s not… safe.”

“All right. That’s all. If you get over 80 on the test Wednesday, I’ll drop your three lowest grades. Feel free to drop by anytime before then for extra help.”

At 16, she got into a relationship with a girl at school. She was transgender as well, but she was out of the closet, and she was very vocal about being trans despite being beaten up for it a couple times. Her name was Stephanie and Jennifer liked her because she was an emblem of who she wanted to be; at least that’s what Jennifer thought. But when Stephanie began pressuring Jen to do things she wasn’t comfortable with— and when Stephanie told her friends that JJ was Jennifer— when her friend Matthew told her to drop her, that’s when she did.

“JJ, she’s hurting you. She’s trying to distance you from us. She never lets you go places on your own. She’s told, like, twenty people about you being, you know.” Matthew let their eyes meet for one, two, three, four, five seconds before glancing away.

After that, Jen stopped introducing herself to anyone. She had to choose a name— Thomas, TJ, JJ, Jennifer— and it all became too stressful for her. She gave up trying to meet anyone at all, instead getting through classes quietly, and reading alone in the library at lunches and when she was free. During class, when group work was required, she helped as much as she was needed and then left. She distanced herself from anyone who could be a friend— they could also be a threat, as Stephanie taught her.

One day, she ran into a classmate, Alysha, in the grocery store, as she was walking next to her mother.

“Hi, JJ!”

She glanced at her confused mother, panicked, and instead of being able to respond like a normal person, she passed out.

In her own defense, she hadn’t eaten in 38 hours, and she’d been panicking beforehand. The whole incident led to her getting taken to the hospital, checked in under the name Thomas Jareau, and being told that there was nothing physically wrong with “him,” and that “he” probably had an anxiety disorder. The nurse there, a lovely man named George, recommended that she stay for a psychological analysis, and, remembering what had happened to Roslyn at this age, her parents agreed. 

Jennifer was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, anorexia nervosa, clinical depression, and post traumatic stress disorder. She didn’t tell them about her gender dysphoria. She couldn’t risk her parents finding out. 

The next two years of her life were a spiral of different therapies, medications, and days pulled out of school, none of which hit at the underlying problem. She went through the motions, feeling nothing but fear, not planning for anything that could happen in the future.

And then she was eighteen and she didn’t have a clue what she was doing with her life. She fought her way through her first two years of university as a sociology major before deciding she couldn’t live like this and telling her GP, who referred her to a gender specialist in Manhattan. The next two years, which she spent as a psychology major, were a whirlwind of therapies and medications, but they helped this time. She got her name legally changed to Jennifer Jareau after one year on estrogen.

She stumbled upon a book launch presented by one David Rossi and, for the first time since she was 11, didn’t feel like her suicide was imminent. She let herself consider what the man was doing and the idea that she too could become a member of the Behavioral Analysis Unit. 

The next day, she signed up to work for the FBI.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr @trans-zoe-murphy!


End file.
